“It could have been worse.”
That’s where the rationalization bar for meaningful, genuinely helpful legislation amid challenging times is now set in Tallahassee, aka GOPsterWorld. Yeah, it could have been worse. We could have been saddled with dueling Supreme Courts, an Arizona-like immigration policy, a swaggering “Gunshine State” moniker and ongoing, unaddressed bestiality subplots.
The sobering reality is that we’re left to ponder a Legislature increasingly rallying around tea party bullet points, ideological slogans and simplistic mantras. From anything-in-the-name-of- “accountability”-must-be-good to anything-with-an-Obama-appellation-must-be-bad. And who but the chronically lazy or the terminally liberal could possibly find fault with “let’s get to work” as a recession-recovery theme? When in doubt, deregulate it or privatize it or untax it.
But the disturbing reality is this. This state is now worse off. The very tip-of-the-iceberg outrages:
*Growth mismanagement is back. The bottom line: The welcome mat is back out for the paving-over-paradise crowd. The Sunshine State is betting it can sprawl its way to economic recovery. Even as the prospect of more than 400,000 foreclosed homes coming on the market would seem to preclude such a scenario. Worse yet, a resultant compromised environment–from weakened wetlands protection to degraded water quality standards–now beckons. Work that into a sales pitch.
But it will bring more (construction) jobs, say proponents. A specious trade-off at best, but not even enough to replace those lost when high-speed rail was sent elsewhere by Gov. Rick Scott, say opponents. The opponents remain right.
*And when faced with a $3.7 billion shortfall in a $69.7 billion budget, why not target public education for a big chunk ($1.35 billion) of it? That’s about an 8 percent hit. Overhauling tenure made sense, but overkilling the budget is counterproductive in a state where educational deficits (not taxes) are the biggest impediment (along with transportation shortcomings) to recruiting the “best and the brightest” and their jobs of the future–immediate and long-term.
In any other year–in any other era–we would be most concerned by the comeback of special interest, euphemistically-obscene “Leadership Funds” and various measures to cynically suppress voter niches in the disingenuous name of (faux) fraud prevention. Plus the privatization of (South Florida county) prisons, the maintenance of property insurance inequities, the “revival” of the state economy at the expense of counties and cities, the placement of 3 million Medicaid recipients into HMOs, the intrusion into abortions with mandatory ultrasound counseling, the limits on doctors asking patients about guns at home, further cuts of state benefits for unemployed Floridians and the elimination of 4,500 state jobs during double-digit unemployment.
And once again, there was no movement on the revenue-raising side because that would presumably mock the overarching, anti-tax sentiment and rhetoric of the majority.
As a result, no online travel-tax change. Online travel companies will still be allowed to pay taxes on the wholesale price of hotel rooms they resell. But at least there was a bill addressing the issue and the implied acknowledgement of a less-than-fair playing field. Not so with the dicey subject of sales-tax exemptions, including the third-rail issue of equitable sales taxes on services. Their advocacy, of course, would have amounted to political suicide or at least a tea party pillory.
And the chances were again greater that the Legislature would consider more gambling scenarios than risk taxing internet retailers. Florida continues to be indifferent to a possible piece of e-commerce sales, now estimated at nearly $3.5 trillion nationally.
And nothing will change under one-party rule. Unless it gets worse.